Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
(2003)

R|
109 min
|Action, Sci-Fi

A cybernetic warrior from a post-apocalyptic future travels back in time to protect a 25-year old drifter and his future wife from a most advanced robotic assassin and to ensure they both survive a nuclear attack.

Awards

Reviews & Commentary

T3 was actually very good. Put it this way, if we had never been treated to the classic and innovative T2, I believe a lot more people would have been in love with T3. T3 was looking at some serious obstacles: 1.) following up T2, a monster success 2.) an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger 3.) making a cohesive story that wouldn't contradict the former Terminators 4.) making a better terminator than the T-1000.

As I said before, they followed up T2 respectably enough. There were good fight scenes with the T-800 and the T-X (I particularly like the fight in the bathroom), and there was an excellent car chase scene near the beginning. The action was good and plentiful, the effects were nice, and there was some good humor in the movie as well.

Arnold was still in shape enough and made up enough to be believable. Of course he wore the leather jacket the entire movie. Not only that, he was an older Terminator model anyway, so any signs of stiffness or slow wittedness could easily be blamed on that.

The story flowed well. John Connor (Nick Stahl) was again the focus except he is now a bit more subdued and scared. In his attempts to stay out of any electronic systems, he chooses a horrible life of joblessness, homelessness, and just plain bumming it. He was complimented by a much smarter, cleaner, and stronger partner, Kate Brewster (Claire Danes); she was tied into the story rather well. They stayed true to the Armageddon type story line and even had a bit of misdirection at the end to make the movie even more interesting.

The T-X model terminator (Kristanna Loken) was nice. Sure, they chose a beautiful woman for the T-X, but she was not to be trifled with. The T-X had the same shape shifting abilities as her predecessor (the T-1000) but she also had abilities to control anything that had a CPU and she could form her hand into a variety of weapons. Similar to the T-1000 (Robert Patrick of T2), the T-X (Loken) took the T-800 (Schwarzenegger) to town, but she was a bit more dangerous even than the T-1000.

T3 was a solid movie for a third installment. Usually by the third sequel you are begging Hollywood to stop, but I can't say that about this movie. This movie is good enough to watch more than once.